Few movies have excited my anticipation as much as the upcoming Beowulf. After studying Old English I became very attached to Anglo-Saxon poetry, none more so than Beowulf. Even when reduced to a mere plot summary, it is still a great epic tale of fighting monsters, dragons and great feats of heroism. It also contains some of the most beautiful imagery and descriptions as well as being a rollicking tale. However, what really made me fall in love with this poem is the large number of human reflections, jokes and observations that are completely easy to empathise with. It was at first, and still is, totally fascinating that something written over 1000 years ago can contain so many thoughts that are still relevant to us today. In many ways their lives back then were wildly different to ours yet I’ve always found the Anglo-Saxon perspective on life was astonishingly easy to relate to. I always found the classic Greek and Roman attitudes strange; interesting, but they had very different beliefs and values to my own. Similarly, when you read Norse sagas, the Viking view of life was quite hard to understand. Through their sagas, they come across as unbelievably macho and butch. Their faith in making it to Valhalla through brave and valiant acts meant that they were quite good humoured about death as long as it was in a fight of some kind. Some of the sagas have bizarre, action-heroesque dying words like “Oh I see broad-edged axes are fashionable in these parts” (said by the hero as the axe lands between his eyes).
The Anglo-Saxon perspective was a little different. While they believed in the afterlife, especially Christian poets like the Beowulf one, they valued life and did not chase death. Even though the poet is writing about the Geats and the Danes, he has them really not eager to kill or risk death unless it is necessary. This makes the fighting more noble, in my opinion, as it is not about the bloodthirsty love of the battle or self-seeking glory, but only taking up arms when you are protecting the people or way of life that you love. It’s Beowulf’s sense of duty and honour that leads him to help the Danes, not just that he is keen for a fight or overly confident that he can take on any kind of monster.
Now it is not a short poem, it’s about 3100 plus lines which means you take many months to translate and analyse it as a text. You tend to become quite protective and possessive over any text that you spend so much time poring over. Old English scholars become quite fierce when people attack or defile their beloved poems.
So years ago I first heard that there was a screenplay of Beowulf written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, and I was pleased and excited. Naturally I had high expectations that it would be adapted as a dark, action-packed epic tale. Since first hearing of this screenplay, I have watched other film versions of Beowulf. First, there was ‘Beowulf: Unleash your dark side’ starring Christopher Lambert. Now, it actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. Of course it didn’t really touch on any of the themes of honour, glory or the concerns of old and sonless kings. The characters were thin and one-dimensional. The humour of the boasting in the mead-hall and the sense of fighting for something that really mattered were lost. It was just a dumb but not unwatchable action film.
There was just one thing that bugged me about it. Grendel’s mum. In the original text, she, like her son, is a monster. A hideous creature who is damned and cursed. A troll is probably the best word we have to describe both Grendel and his mother although it was not a term ever used in the poem. Grendel was a cursed fen-dweller, he was far bigger than a human and hated people. Now he is not unfeeling or unthinking, but he is described as an evil monster who is driven by hate. Grendel’s mother comes into the story after Grendel’s death. She is likewise described as cursed but lives in an underwater hall. She is driven to kill for revenge for her son’s death. Grendel’s mother is described as a ‘brimwylf’ (a she-wolf of the water), an ‘aewiht’ (a strange or alien being) and also a ‘grundwyrgen’ (an accursed female of the deep). There is also debate over the term ‘aglæc-wif’ that is used to describe her. Some critics believe it means ‘monster-woman’, others ‘hag-woman’ and some think it merely means ‘warrior-woman’.
I have not come across any evidence to suggest that this one troublesome word translates as ‘really hot chick’. That is what bugged me about the ‘Beowulf: Unleash you dark side’. When Grendel’s mum emerges to seek revenge, she is a scantily-clad blonde supermodel seductress*. She seeks out the soldiers, seduces them and them kills them.
What the….?
Why? In the original Grendel’s mother is far stronger than any human. She drags Beowulf down to the bottom of her lair and the swords in her armoury are so heavy that no normal man could even hold one, thus making Beowulf extra heroic when he grabs one and decapitates her with it.
Even ignoring the fact that she is far stronger than a human male and therefore would have no need to seduce them first to kill them, she is not actually made out to be a looker in the original text. Let’s just be clear about the original. There is no sexual tension between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother. She is just one of the three monsters he has to fight who happens to be a female.
OK, so maybe Hollywood figured audiences just weren’t really for a strong but ugly evil female in 1998, but what about later versions?
‘Beowulf and Grendel’ was released in 2005 (according to IMDB) but I only saw it last year. I had had reasonable hopes for this. From the trailer, it had a good look to it. Grendel appeared to be vaguely troll like. Also I had read that they were just focussing on the first battle, so I was unlikely to be irritated by a hot Grendel’s mama character. However, it was a terrible adaptation for several reasons. Beowulf as a character was unlikeable – angsty and indecisive. There is a tie for the worst and most fatal flaw of the film though. One is the addition of a pointlessly annoying anti-feminist character ‘Selma’ the witch. She has nothing to do with the original and seems to purely be there as a way to misrepresent the position of women in the society (cast out for being a witch and raped by all the local blokes whenever they felt like it), and as a love interest for Beowulf. The other thing they do is give the villain Grendel a backstory to make him sympathetic and explain why he wants to kill the Danes. OK, so the whole villain’s backstory thing worked out fine when Tim Burton did it for Batman villains but does every film of Good versus Evil really need exposition of why the villain is a baddie? Imagine if Peter Jackson had done that with Lord of the Rings. There is this whole 10 minute sequence when Sauron was a youngster and wanted to play with the elves but they laughed at him. Cut to slightly older and embittered Sauron forging the rings and the One Ring as his evil revenge on all of Middle Earth because the elves picked on him and he couldn’t get a girlfriend when he was younger.
The attempt to make Grendel more sympathetic was disastrous. It made Beowulf’s attack on him less noble as the people he was protecting weren’t very sympathetic. It led to a horrible angsty bout of indecision on Beowulf’s part at the end as it wasn’t clear what was the right thing to do. It also made the character of Grendel hard to understand. Were we meant to like him? He was still a brutal killer. Also there was a deplorable section of the story where they had Grendel rape the witch character (although she seemed not too bothered by the giant-troll rape) and then be all protective and caring over her afterwards? How exactly were they expecting the audience to respond to that?
Not good. After some pretty offensively bad adaptations of one of the greatest works in the history of English literature, I’ve been hoping for third time lucky with the Gaiman/Avary ‘Beowulf’ that is coming out this year. However, whilst at the cinema I spied a poster for it that make me fear for the worst.
Oh no! Angelina Jolie is playing Grendel’s mother?!!! ARRRGGGHHHH!!! I checked out the website to be sure and yep, it wasn’t a mislabelled ‘Tomb Raider’ she is definitely playing the hideous troll Hollywood style – that is as a sexy and seductive villain.
Oh well, at least I’ll get to watch this despicable corruption of the character of Grendel’s mother into some hot chick get decapitated by Beowulf in an epic underwater battle? Maybe I’m being too optimistic. Maybe she will have steamy underwater sex with Beowulf and then they’ll run off together with the love of a good hero having made her realise the error of her ways a la Bond film villainess.
I guess Hollywood thinks we aren’t quite really for an evil but ugly woman yet.
* Played by Layla Roberts whose only other claim to fame seems to be having won the dubious honour of being Playboy Playmate of the Month October 1997
